The present invention relates to graphical user interfaces, and particularly to display or visual characteristics and methods for determining display characteristics for user interfaces. More particularly still, the present invention relates to variable display indicators to relay information to users of computing devices.
Small, handheld computing devices have been steadily growing in popularity in recent years. The devices are known by different names, such as palmtops, pocket computers, personal digital assistants, personal organizers, H/PCs (handheld personal computers), or the like. These devices, hereinafter xe2x80x9csmall computer devices,xe2x80x9d provide much of the same functionality as their larger counterparts. In particular, the small computer devices provide users the ability to perform word processing, task management, spreadsheet processing, address book functions and Internet browsing, as well as many other functions. Of particular importance to small computer device users is the ability to receive, read and respond to email from various mobile or remote locations.
Given the small size of these devices, users gain mobility but typically lose other benefits of the larger computer systems. One such drawback relates to the fact that small computer devices typically have significantly smaller display areas. That is, these devices tend to have display areas that are less than one-eighth the size of average, desktop display areas. Consequently, due to the limitations of the display sizes, some beneficial information is simply not displayed to users during the use of certain applications.
As an example, when using a large display monitor to view a list of items, such as email messages, tasks or other electronic documents, a user sees quite a bit of information related to the item, other than just the name of the item. Essentially, each item has various unique characteristics or properties, such as the item""s, name, subject, size, and xe2x80x9cage.xe2x80x9d The age of an item relates to the time it was received, if it is an email message, or the time it was last modified, if it is a file, or a due date, if it is a task, or some other time information. These various properties, e.g., the size and age of the item, are typically displayed in combination with the name of the item. Typically, the display shows these separate properties in columns, providing the user a significant amount of information about each item, which allows the user to visually sort the list of items based on separate criteria. Therefore, if the user is only concerned with recent items of a particular type, the user can sort the items by type and then visually scan the age column to locate the desired items without examining each item in detail.
Comparatively however, small computer devices cannot display the same amount of information as the larger monitors. In order to compensate for the small display areas, the small computer devices, or more particularly, the applications running on the small computer devices simply eliminate columns of information from the display. For example, in an email application where each message has a xe2x80x9cFromxe2x80x9d property, a xe2x80x9cSubjectxe2x80x9d property and a xe2x80x9cReceivedxe2x80x9d property, the application may chose not to show the xe2x80x9cReceivedxe2x80x9d column to provide more space for the xe2x80x9cSubjectxe2x80x9d column. Simply removing the column of information in this manner, however, is unsatisfactory since the time property for email is a property that users typically want to see as they scan the list of items.
In some email applications, or other applications providing a list view, the list may be sorted by time such that if the time property was not shown, the users could still visually determine the relative age of the items with respect to the other items. However, many users also sort their items based on various other properties, such as by the name of the person who sent the email. When sorted by a property other than time, the user needs the time information column to determine which items are more recent. For many users, it is important to be able to sort mail based on other properties and still be able to readily recognize the recently received items from the older, stale email messages.
An alternative solution to optimizing the display space relates to having the small computer device narrow the width of each column. Unfortunately however, narrowing each column significantly limits the amount of property information available to a user. That is, the reduced size of the column typically truncates the information, often to the point that no meaningful information can be gleaned from the remaining text and therefore narrowing columns is generally an unsatisfactory solution. For example, narrowing the xe2x80x9cSubjectxe2x80x9d column from an email application to allow time information to be displayed may truncate the subject text such that the user cannot determine the message subject. Moreover, since many users place the entire message in the subject line, increasing the available subject space is preferred.
It is with respect to these considerations and others that the present invention has been made.
The present invention relates to a system and method for displaying property information, such as time information, on a display without displaying the textual column for these properties. The method of the present invention relates to comparing predetermined properties for an item to a threshold value and assigning varying display indicators to the items based on the item""s relative properties. The varying display indicators, such as colored fonts, have a variable quality such that as a relative property for the item changes, the variable indicator changes accordingly. Thus, information is displayed to the user based on properties of the item without displaying explicit text.
In accordance with preferred aspects of the invention, an embodiment of the invention compares the determined property of an item and compares the property to a predetermined value and then varies the display accordingly. In one embodiment, the invention relates to an application that determines the relative xe2x80x9cagexe2x80x9d of an item based on the time the item was received or modified. The application then uses the relative age to vary the color or hue of the font used to display the other properties, such as the name or subject of the item. As the item ages, the color or hue changes to indicate the relative aging to the user. Thus, the application display need not show the time property column to provide time-property information to the user. In other embodiments, the variable indicators are different font sizes and font types, among other indicators.
The invention may be implemented as a computer process, a computing system or as an article of manufacture such as a computer program product. The computer program product may be a computer storage medium readable by a computer system and encoding a computer program of instructions for executing a computer process. The computer program product may also be a propagated signal on a carrier readable by a computing system and encoding a computer program of instructions for executing a computer process.
The present invention relates to a system and method of displaying property information for an item in a graphical user interface on a computer system wherein the method comprises the steps of comparing the property information to a value to generate a comparison value, assigning a visual indicator to the item related to the comparison value, wherein the-assigned visual indicator is one of at least three possible visual indicators; and displaying the item using the assigned visual indicator. Additionally, the system and method may also comprise the step of updating the value and the assigned variable visual indicators so the display characteristics change as the value changes.
In accordance with preferred aspects the present invention relates to assigning fonts having different colors, hues, type faces, sizes and/or other different visual characteristics to the text used to identify different items, e.g., the font used for the name of the item, based on different characteristics such as the time of the item. Moreover, as the characteristics change, such as when an item becomes older, the visual characteristics change accordingly. Changing the visual characteristics as the relative properties change provides the user with a significant amount information related to the item without displaying explicit text, such as the precise time for the item.